All Days Are Night

All Days Are Night Read Free

Book: All Days Are Night Read Free
Author: Peter Stamm
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Psychological, Contemporary Women
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took these?
    Gillian had taken the pictures without looking at them and slipped them back in the envelope.
    That’s nothing to do with you.
    Matthias gave a humorless laugh. Of course you think it’s perfectly acceptable to appear in photographs like these.
    You can rest assured, she said, they’re not going to be published.
    Oh, so you took them for fun?
    Maybe they were going to be a present for you, she said.
    For a moment Matthias didn’t say anything. What ifthe guy in the photo lab kept a set of prints? he asked. But then you don’t seem to care who sees you like that.
    It was you who took the film to be developed, said Gillian, I never asked you to.
    Matthias walked out. An hour later he was standing in the doorway in his dark suit and asking if she was ready. It was at that moment that Gillian lost all respect for him.
    Okay, she said, we’ll go. I’ll just get changed quickly.
    She went to the bedroom and put on her shortest dress, black fishnet stockings, heels. She put on scarlet lipstick and applied a little scent behind her ears, a sultry perfume Matthias had given her that she hardly ever wore. Matthias stood impatiently in the corridor.
    When she passed him on the way to the front door, he hissed after her, where do you think you’re going, a party with friends or a brothel?
    Neither of them said a word in the car, and at the party he did his best to stay away from her. Gillian saw him in the distance with his gelled hair and shiny suit.
    By two a.m. there was just a hard core of partiers left sitting around the big table, which was full of dirty plates and empty glasses. Matthias was the only man, he stood off, glass in hand, staring through the patio door into the dark garden. Dagmar, who had recently broken up with her boyfriend, was saying she was finding it increasingly difficult to see men as erotic objects. Even though the agreement had been that Gillian would drive them home, she had had a fair bit to drink. She agreed with Dagmar and said women simply had nicer bodies than men. Dagmar got up to go to the bathroom. She stopped behind Gillian, placed her hands on her shoulders, and kissed her onthe cheek. Matthias opened the patio door and stalked out into the garden.
    Matthias was arts editor of a magazine that was not noted for its coverage of the arts. When they first met, Gillian was still working for the local TV station. She had been impressed by the way he seemed to know everyone in the cultural scene. Their paths kept crossing, Matthias introduced her to people and talked her into going to openings and premieres. One very cold winter day they met at the premiere for a musical in a small theater in the city. After the show they sat together with some of the cast. Gillian talked to the composer for most of the evening. He had asked her what her name was, and she explained her mother was English. She had a sense the composer knew something about her that she herself was unaware of. When they all left the theater a little after midnight, the streets were full of snow, and an icy wind was blowing. Matthias said he had something he wanted to tell her. While the others walked to the funicular, he took her across the street to a small belvedere. The lights of the city glittered in the cold; even the stars seemed unusually close. Matthias showed her a memorial stone under a big linden tree and told her this was where Büchner was buried. He put his arm around her shoulder and told her the story of the poor child in Woyzeck , which Gillian dimly remembered from school. And the moon was a piece of rotten wood, the stars were little golden midges and the earth an upside down harbor. And then they kissed.
    That was as far as things progressed that evening. They had parted at a tram stop and gone home their separate ways. It wasn’t until the spring that they first spent a nighttogether. Gillian had a couple of difficult relationships behind her and was glad that Matthias was straightforward and seemed

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